Is Talent Acquisition Too Sophisticated?

One main reason we add complexity
into talent acquisition is a concept known as the sophistication of fear. It’s
the same reason we use long words when we could just use short words. It’s why
fancy restaurants have a dress code to keep the riff raff out. It’s why we tell
our kids, “you just wouldn’t understand." We say it's complicated when it’s
probably not, but we just don’t know how to answer or don’t want to answer.

We invent these complexities as a safety barrier. Safety
from not being questioned on why we can’t accomplish something in our control.
Safety from being found out we might be a fraud in what we say we can do.

Talent acquisition is known for this.

“We have to change our processes, and build our employment
brand, and develop interview guides and select an assessment, and…” before we
can pick up a phone and call a candidate to see if they would want to come work
for us.

I truly think the best talent acquisition pros have one
major trait in common. Great talent acquisition pros and shops are fearless. This
is who we are, and we love it! We don’t have to hide behind complexity and
process. We don’t need sophistication.

Start your talent acquisition strategy with the basics

Great talent acquisition shops start simple and nail it. Once
they do simple really well, they begin to add things around that core that will
make them even better. Average and poor talent acquisition shops do this
entirely backwards. They, first, build sophistication into all they do, and
then they try and do the simple things. Most fail.

I love recruitment technology as much as anyone, but I do
think it hurts organizations that can’t do the basics. Technology allows you to
do what you do faster, not better. If you suck at talking candidates into why
they should come to work for you, technology will allow you to suck at that
faster.

I get it! Everyone who works in talent acquisition,
including myself, wants HR and the rest of the organization to think what
we do is strategic and complicated and we are all irreplaceable. If it
looks like what we do is simple, people could judge us as a function anyone can
do.

But, here’s our dirty little secret. We know that isn’t
true! Recruiting a candidate to your company isn’t easy and most people, given
the chance, would fail at it. You don’t need to be sophisticated to be
successful. Work to simplify everything you do in talent acquisition. Eliminate
sophistication for the sake of sophistication.

Let’s get back to talent acquisition in its simplest form –
you and me, having a conversation about why it would be great to work here.

Strategic Talent Acquisition

Examine strategic talent acquisition and how it is enabled by the integrated talent management platform.

Strategic Talent Acquisition

By Tim Sackett

Tim is the President of HRU Technical Resources, engineering and IT staffing firm in Lansing, MI. He has 20 years of HR and recruiting background split evenly between corporate Fortune 500 gigs and third party staffing gigs. The best performance feedback Tim ever received was that he was "unfiltered and loose in the corners." Tim tells it like it is, which means sometimes he calls HR and Talent Pros out on the dumb stuff we do. Catch him weekly at www.timsackett.com and www.fistfuloftalent.com.